Founding attorney, Law Offices of Jonathan R. Whitehead LLC, Lee’s Summit, Missouri
Jon Whitehead represents churches, religious organizations, nonprofits, and people of faith, along with businesses and individuals in civil litigation. He has handled cases from local circuit courts to the Supreme Court of the United States, and has recovered assets and governance rights valued at hundreds of millions of dollars.
Talk with Jon. The first consultation—30 minutes, by phone or Zoom—is free for new clients. Book a free consultation or call 816-398-8305. When you book, send only your name, how to reach you, the names of the other people or organizations involved, and a sentence about the kind of help you need, so we can check for conflicts first.
Practice
- Churches and religious organizations: governing documents, incorporation, group exemptions, property and denominational disputes, employment, and the ministerial exception. See Church lawyer.
- Religious liberty: claims against government bodies that burden or exclude people of faith, and religious discrimination at work. See When the government discriminates and Religious discrimination at work.
- Civil litigation: small-business ownership disputes, bad-faith insurance denials, complex consumer fraud, and personal injury.
- Business law: formation, operating agreements, contracts, and ownership disputes.
Notable cases
- Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 582 U.S. 449 (2017). Jon was among counsel for the church in a landmark Free Exercise case. The Supreme Court held that Missouri could not exclude a church from a public grant program because it was a church.
- Carson v. Makin, 596 U.S. 767 (2022). Jon was on the briefs for the petitioners, with his father, Michael Whitehead. The Court held that Maine could not exclude religious schools from its tuition-assistance program.
- Missouri Baptist Convention charity-governance litigation. Jon was among counsel for the Convention’s Executive Board when five agencies tried to break away. After nearly seventeen years, the Convention recovered its historic rights in Missouri Baptist University, The Baptist Home, and the Missouri Baptist Foundation—more than $200 million in assets—and its legal fees were recovered from the opposing parties’ insurers.
- Heartland Presbytery v. Gashland Presbyterian Church, 364 S.W.3d 575 (Mo. App. W.D. 2012). Jon was among counsel for the congregation, which kept its property when the court held that a denomination’s trust clause did not reach it without the church’s own expression of intent.
- A local church v. Jackson County, Missouri. Jon represented a church alleging that the county applied more restrictive COVID-19 rules to houses of worship than to secular groups. The case settled for $146,000.
Recognition and service
- Named an Influential Appellate Advocate by Missouri Lawyers Weekly (2018).
- Steering committee, UMKC’s annual Law and Religious Freedom Conference, for the past 11 years.
- Leadership roles in the Kansas City chapters of the Christian Legal Society and the Federalist Society.
- Former trustee of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Writing
Articles on church governance, nonprofit law, and religious liberty, and the group-exemption guide on Rev. Proc. 2026-8.
Background
Jon graduated from Southwest Baptist University (B.A. 2001) and Harvard Law School (J.D. 2004). He returned to Kansas City, where he practiced at one of the nation’s largest law firms and then at a regional firm, before founding his own firm in 2008.
Bar admissions
- Missouri
- U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri
- U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas
- U.S. District Court for the District of Maine
- U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second and Eighth Circuits
- Supreme Court of the United States
Profiles
LinkedIn · Super Lawyers · Avvo · Justia · Missouri Bar directory
Ready to talk? Book a free consultation or call 816-398-8305. Here is what happens next:
- A free 30-minute call for new clients, by phone or Zoom. Before the call, send only your name, how to reach you, the names of the other people or organizations involved, and a sentence about the kind of help you need, so we can check for conflicts first.
- A written quote or fee agreement before any billed work begins. Nonprofit discounts are available.
- You decide whether to go ahead. Nothing is billed until you do.
Past results afford no guarantee of future results; every case is different and must be judged on its own merits. Law Offices of Jonathan R. Whitehead LLC, 229 SE Douglas St., Ste. 210, Lee’s Summit, Missouri 64063.